SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The leaders of five states plan a visit to the only place where a beef product known as "pink slime" is still made, an effort aimed to support its embattled manufacturer, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Texas Gov. Rick Perry will visit the one Beef Products Inc. plant that's still in operation to combat misconceptions and misinformation about the company and its "lean, finely textured beef" product, company spokesman Rich Jochum said.

They'll be joined at the South Sioux City, Neb., plant on Thursday by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Nebraska Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy and South Dakota Lt. Governor Matt Michels.

Dakota Dunes, S.D.-based Beef Products said Monday it is suspending operations at plants in Texas, Kansas and Iowa where it makes the low-cost beef ingredient from fatty bits of meat left over from other cuts.

The bits are heated and spun to remove most of the fat, and the lean mix then is compressed into blocks and exposed to ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella. The result is a product, which has been used for years and meets federal food safety standards, that is as much as 97 percent lean beef.

Critics call the product an unappetizing example of industrialized food production and dub it "pink slime."

I have no problem with finely textured beef. Sounds like the processors are very concerned about food safety.

The food industry is coming under increasing attack by the FDA, EPA and enviro-wackos. One way to get everyone’s weight down would be a good, old-fashioned famine.

What’s coming next is an assault on vegetable oil, the most basic of food commodities, because most of it is processed using hexane (yes, one of the explosive components of gasoline). Expect to pay a lot more for it soon.

If anyone wants to send us your pink slime, we will put it to good use. Pack it up in some dry ice and send it here. It’s grilling season. We can add some tofu, Parmesan cheese, egg and season salt for the best burgers on the planet!

Just buy some cat food and a bottle of ammonia and you can have all you want. Oh wait, the cat food is better quality than the mechanically separated connective tissue that is pink slime. I’m so glad we purchase our meat from a local farmer. The first time we ate their beef it was like eating beef for the first time. There is no way I could go back to what is in the grocery store. It has absolutely no flavor.

If it’s so good, they can sell their “lean, finely textured beef” product as is. Put it in a package and let it compete with regular ground beef. At minimum I want to know whether this filler is in my hamburger.

This is basically the meat that was once considered too dangerous (or unappetizing) for human consumption and went into dog food and other animal feed. Beef Products, Inc. may have found a way to make it safe by using ammonium hydroxide gas, but it sure as heck isn’t a very appealing process and I really don’t want anything to do with it.

Maybe everyone here has money to buy the butcher cut ground meat or run out to the local farmer for grain fed. We don’t. When we buy “ground meat” we buy the big tubes. THAT is this product. It’s not a “filer”. It’s beef. You make a patty out of it and it’s actually leaner than some of the ground chuck patties I’ve cooked at my in-laws.

Cowboy up. Not everyone can afford the fine stuff. And when you grew up like I did, eating Scrapple and head cheese, you find that meat is meat when you’re hungry.

Cowboy up. Not everyone can afford the fine stuff. And when you grew up like I did, eating Scrapple and head cheese, you find that meat is meat when youre hungry.

Great, you buy all of it you want. I can afford not to. It seems an awful lot of people find the process revolting and don't want it in their ground beef. Stores are responding to keep their customers.

And yes, it is filler. If it weren't they could package their "lean, finely textured beef" product up and compete with the regular stuff. And I am all for that too. If it is safe, and I have no reason to think it isn't, then Beef Products Inc. should sell it as is.

Mechanically separated chicken is pretty revolting too. I avoid stuff made of that as well. I've got no problem if you want to eat it, just let me know exactly what it is so I can make my own choice.

This is about TRUTH IN PACKAGING. When I go to a grocery store to buy ground beef, I expect it to be 100% ground chuck. Not 75% ground chuck, 25% ground beef by-product. If the market wants to offer a lower priced substitute, fine, great, I got no problem. But LABEL it. Don’t deceive customers.

By the way, you make it sound like this has been SOP for decades. How about they’ve only been doing it for a few years. My family has always bought locally raised beef up until the last few months. We immediately noticed a difference in the store bought ground beef. When we first read about pink slime, it all made sense.

18
posted on 03/27/2012 7:44:35 PM PDT
by Emo4SC
(Disclaimer: All thoughts expressed here are not my own, but merely what I've been told by Talk Radio)

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